DESIGN STUDIO VII, LAU DEPARTMENT OF ARCHITECTURE, sec 33 & 34

Leen Shamlati / Ghinwa Maki - The others

Throughout Mar Mikhael, the street, the
buildings, the balconies, the dead spaces, create a certain rhythm, that is
carried through the site designated. Against factors of history, time, and
change, this rhythm is altered by the story of the ghost, by which every
building that exists ends at some point; the ghost is the memory of an
existence, it is the impact that a building leaves on its neighboring building,
it is because of the shared spaces in Mar Mikhael. This mark on the new
building is the coexistence of the new and the old, a reminder of the
ephemeral.

A souk naturally forms itself on the pins
and boards against a big inclined wall, when this is done with, the people of
the souk leave their hangers and pieces of clothes and products on the wall;
consequently this prepares the ambiance for the fashion runway that takes place
on a path along the side. A pool of water forms near one of the entrances and
provides a soothing place for the passers by and the dance school, and when
this water is taken out or evaporated, the plaza it leaves becomes a
performance area.

qualitative physical models

"the ghost" : the existing transformations of the surrounding buildings / neighborhood

A street leads to a ramp that gives a
progressive look at the design workshop happening underground, and then takes
the user to the souk , where the work is exhibited and to the public plazas.The functions are based on the memory of
the previous function.

Instructor

Course outline / objectives

The studio will focus in the Mar Mikhael area of downtown Beirut, Lebanon, explore and analyze its current urban conditions, speculate on the future dynamic of the area, and finally propose an architectural synthesis that comes to solve some of todays and possible future issues.

Mar Mikhael is following the rapid (yet ephemeral) change of Gemmayze, from a mainly local low income residents area, to a nightlife adventure land and ex patriots bee hive. Apparently Gemmayze followed the Hamra area in this urban gentrification whirlpool, a phenomenon in Beirut that seems to take place arbitrarily. Still, bars and restaurants in Gemmayze are now closing one after another, revealing a quite uncertain future for the area.

The scope of this studio is to design an “Urban Hub” in Mar Mikhael that will be able to sparkle viable growth. Students will have to answer the before mentioned problems, by their design strategy / proposal. They will have to propose a hybrid space: a mix of public and private spaces in a currently empty lot, that will be able to sustain today’ s gentrification of the area, while respecting the existing resident’s needs. Their final design will have to host diverse target groups that actually use it 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. This “Urban Hub” will have to promote sustainable, architecturally designed growth for the whole area, instead of the current arbitrary and ephemeral condition. The site is located between Madrid street, Pharoun street and the Coast highway.

Like Gemmayze, Mar Mikhael is characterised by a very dense and diverse city grid. Almost all of Beirut's building typologies can be found here. From dwellings dating back to the Ottoman Empire, to Bauhaus influenced concrete buildings of the 1920's and contemporary high end residential towers. Students are expected to analyze these typologies with drawings, photographs and sketches in their site analysis as well as the city fabric typologies.

At the same time, students will develop skills in using digital media as a design tool in the generation of a project, and not just as a representational tool at the end of the design process. Digital tools will have to be used in order to experiment with hybrid programmatic connections and transitions as well as tectonics and structure beyond Le Corbusier's DOM-INO model. Ambiance and atmosphere are also to be taken under consideration.

Readings extend from Rem Koolhaas's "Junkspace" and Reiser and Umemototo's "Atlas of novel tectonics" to Kevin Kelly's "Hive mind" in "Out of control".